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Today's News on Burma (r)



	 


               World: Asia-Pacific

               US congressman calls for aid to
               Burma 



               An American Congressman, who's just returned from a trip to
Burma, has
               said the country is in desperate need of large scale
humanitarian aid. 

               The congressman, Tony Hall, a Democrat, said that
withholding
               international aid until there's real democracy in Burma
would only prolong
               the poverty and suffering. 

               His call conflicts with the policy of the opposition
National League for
               Democracy, whose leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, argues that any
aid will go
               into the pockets of Burma's generals and won't change the
lives of
               ordinary people. 

               From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

                ****************
Yahoo! News
                                                                     AP
Headlines 


Monday January 18 12:16 PM ET 

Myanmar Lawmaker Said To Flee

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - An ethnic minority member of Myanmar's Parliament
has fled to an area on the country's
rugged border with Thailand lying outside the government's control, an
opposition group said today.

Naing Thaung Shein of the Mon National Democratic Front fled in late
December due to the military government's
repression of its opponents, the All Burma Students' Democratic Front said
in a statement.

The statement did not say where the 51-year-old lawmaker had fled but
suggested that he was in an area controlled by ethnic
rebels opposed to the government.

The statement, which cited unnamed sources, said Myanmar's military
intelligence agency detained Naing Thaung Shein's
son in retaliation.

The student group, based along the Thai-Myanmar border, said Myanmar's
government intensified a crackdown on
members of Naing Thaung Shein's party after they joined with the country's
main opposition party leader, Nobel laureate
Aung San Suu Kyi, in trying to force Parliament to convene.

The military government refused to allow Parliament to meet after Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy won a
landslide victory in a 1990 general election.

Today's statement added that the chairman of the Mon National Democratic
Front, Naing Htun Thein, had been detained
without trial and that three other members of the ethnic party had been
sentenced in December to seven years'
imprisonment.

Asked about the claims made in the student group statement, a government
spokesman responded by fax that the three
convicted men had been found guilty of attempting to create a
misunderstanding and trying to derail an existing peace
agreement between the Mon ethnic group and the government.

The spokesman, who insisted on anonymity, said Naing Thaung Shein fled
because he was wanted on the same charges
and that his son was arrested for violating immigration laws.